Larry McMurtry: On Rice,Writing and the Fate of Books BY
DAV I D
D.
M E D I N A
LARRY MCMURTRY IS FOND OF SAYING THAT HIS PARENTS WANTED HIM TO STAY AT THE RANCH AND HERD CATTLE, BUT HE WANTED TO HERD WORDS.
B
orn in 1936 in Wichita Falls, Texas, and raised outside Archer City, Larry McMurtry began his literary journey when he was 6 years old. He was living on a cattle ranch deprived of books, but one day a cousin, on his way to enlist for the Army, dropped off a box of 19 adventure books. “I picked up one, and I have been reading ever since,” McMurtry said. “I’d play hooky from the first grade to read.”
McMurtry’s slow Texas accent belies his sharp, encyclopedic mind. He can impart obscure information on any number of topics: writers, history, diseases, comics and manners. That knowledge comes from the 28,000 books stored in his personal library and the one million books he has handled as an antiquarian bookseller. “I have been reading for 66 years,” he explained. “That’s a lot of years.” During that time, the 72-year-old also has contributed his fair share of writing to the world’s library: 29 novels, two collections of essays, three memoirs and more than 30 screenplays. He won the Pulitzer Prize for “Lonesome Dove” and an Oscar for co-writing “Brokeback Mountain.” “He’s certainly a productive writer,” said Walter Isle, a Rice professor emeritus of English. Isle has known McMurtry since 1960, when they both attended Stanford University as English students. “I think he is a good storyteller. He’s a very good essayist, and he knows a lot about the American West.”
Rice Magazine
•
No. 3
•
2009
31